Eagle Classic - What A Classic!

Ladies,

How do I even begin to write about what happened today? I mean, I expected there to be great times, in fact, I would have bet on it. What I didn't know, and it kept me up all night, was how many would be great, and worse, what I could possibly say to anyone that didn't see their best time of the season. That one had me seriously concerned, because in all honesty, I've never had a team go top-to-bottom great the way this one did today. Luckily I didn't have to find something to say, because you all blew through expectations as a team.

Okay, not exactly true... I did have a fair idea of what you were capable of. Carrie and Joslyn under 21? Easy to predict. Zoe, Kaitlyn, and Madison under 23? Very easy to predict. Diana and Chelsey under 24? That was on the far end of my expectations, though it was certainly possible. Sara, Cythany, and Kate all under 25? I hoped, but I wouldn't have bet on all of them given what Sara has been through. So, to be fair to myself, the data said you could do it, I related that information to you, but there is no way for me to take credit for any of it. I'm just an observer.

You guys did it.

What you accomplished individually and as a team was to elevate a couple of levels. You are now serious Semi-State contenders, with the possibility of State appearance at the end. Long shot? Sure. Possible? Absolutely!

Do you realize you only lost to Terre Haute North by 5 points. Salem didn't put a team together again, so it's hard to get a hard fix on them, but I'm guessing you gained some ground. Did you notice how close to Sydney Joslyn finished? Sixteen seconds. That's it. Carrie miscalculated her first mile and it cost her, otherwise we had two girls at 20-mid. Salem has two fast girls, maybe even three, but beyond that I don't think so much. For us, 3-5 are outstanding, and 6-7 aren't bad at all. If we can keep improving, it's hard to imagine how we don't get out of Regional.

Okay, this is the part where normally I would break it all down... sadly, I cannot quite yet. I'm in the process of setting up my new computer, and I don't have all my software ready yet. Instead I will give you my impressions, however inaccurate (or unsupported) they may be at the moment. In order of finish:

Joslyn - brilliant race. You did fall off a little the second mile, though to be fair that is where the going gets tough. I saw you getting pushed around here and there by the other runners - warned you, didn't I? You came through with a powerful finish, and I'm sure you can see 20-flat from where you are standing. Gutsy job!

Carrie - as I told you earlier, there isn't a breath between you and Joslyn right now. You both simply have different tools. Yours was your undoing today - you are a sprinter, and you have essentially sprinted at the front of the race instead of the end. Slowing down slightly in the first half mile would have made all the difference. Believe me, if you can zero in on the proper effort level early, you could drop another 45 seconds to a minute this season.

Katlyn - wow! WOW! I have absolutely nothing to add to what you did except to say a great big, "I TOLD YOU SO!" I knew you were going to break big, and told my friends so all week. And don't think for a second you're done. Oh no, this is only the beginning. You are still sorting it out, we have much speed work to do yet, and you are going to get better and better.

Madison - well? Feeling better about things now? You didn't lose as much as you thought, now did you? It's a confidence thing. No, it's a mindset thing. Look, you can look at challenges before you as insurmountable, or you can look at them as puzzles that have to be solved. Here's the common sense to it... other girls can run fast, and so can you. What I mean by that is I think sometimes you're quick to think something is impossible, when in fact it isn't - it's just going to cost something. When you get right down to it, you have very fast legs. You have good conditioning. That means placing your head in the right place makes all the difference. Today you didn't let the last two weeks determine your fate. If you can keep your head there, and build on it, you will hardly believe what will happen.

Zoe - ditto what I said about Katlyn. All week long I've been telling my friends to watch you, that you would break big. I told you that too. And, like Madison, you have only to get your ahead around the possibility of doing something great, and you will do it. You were tough today and hung in there. You do have to remember to keep the heels of a girl you are chasing (in this case Katlyn), but I really have no complaint whatsoever over what happened. You raced your guts out and had a huge PR. That is nothing but positive.

Chelsey - Perfect race. Perfect. I have nothing because there is nothing to say. Huge effort, huge PR. I wish mom could have been there!

Diana - so you didn't quite get 24. So what? Huge PR, and what a confidence booster! It was a steady race for you, and a very complete effort. Wish you had more kick! ;)

Cynthany - I'm just amazed. I hoped you would break 25, but never dreamed you would crush it the way you did. That was a fine display of tough, smart racing. Good steady effort, great finish. BRAVO!

Sara - Again, totally amazed. I was afraid when we mistimed your medicine it might be a problem, but if was, you would never be able to tell. What a great time on such short miles for the year! I don't think anyone could have seen such a fine drop in time as you had today.

Kate - Glad that's over, aren't you? I can see how tight you get before a race, and that's something we will be talking about. You ran a great race, and I know that hurt a bunch, but man, what a drop! I do believe you will break 24 this year before it is done.

I still can't believe we had a virtual tie with Terre Haute North... that's huge! We beat Madison, New Albany, and Jeffersonville by about a 100 points or more... the only HHC team I'm not certain of now is Columbus East, but at this point we are looking at 3rd at HHC this year - a huge improvement.

Man.

I'm going to sign off for now. I will work on this computer to get it up to speed. After that... breakdown. That will likely come tomorrow or even Monday.

2014 Eagle Classic Results

Big day!

Tomorrow is a big day. Go to bed! Wait! Remember...

• Be at pool by 7:50 AM
• Leave by 8:00 AM
• Arrive by 9:00 AM
• Race at 10:00 AM
• Head for home 12:00 PM
• Eat lunch
• Arrive home by 2:00 PM

Don't forget gear - shoes, uniform, warm ups. 

Get excited! This is one of the best races of the season!

Great Training Partners Hurt You!

Ladies,

You are close. I mean, really close to greatness. How close? How about this --][-- close?

Let's review. We have 10 girls on the team, and you have almost to a person improved every meet, in leaps and bounds for many. Your workouts show that even more incredible things are on the horizon. The speedwork has gone great, everyone is beginning to get healthy, and the gap between #1 and #5 is shrinking by the moment. Not because #1 is slowing down either... rather, everyone is raising their game.

This brings us to that point in the season where I have to get some things out there. I have pushed you hard the last two weeks, and you can count on me doing a lot more of it. I have been repeating the same ideas over and over, and my tone about racing has become more and more adversarial. For some of you this may be unexpected. I could certainly understand that coming from the freshmen.

Well, that's what competition is. Someone out there wants the same thing you want. If you want that something, you'd better be ready to do whatever it takes to get it (within ethical and legal means, of course). Feelings have nothing to do with it. It's understood there will be winners and losers, and it's up to all to do all within her power to come out on top.

My specific job is to help each of you be the very best athlete and competitor I possibly can. In that respect I am the personal coach of each of you. In that capacity I will tell you everything I've learned about your rivals, including strengths and weaknesses. On a day-to-day basis, that means your teammates. I have to pit you against one another in order to develop the mindset necessary to race your real rivals - those quality runners from other teams.

Let me say you are very fortunate to have such a talented team, because you are able to fairly replicate the race environment you will face when it's for real. Your teammates are going to fight just as hard as your competition will.

Going back to the need to pit you against one another, let's think about how summer runs go... everyone is friendly, it's a good time, and no one goes particularly hard at it. You know it's about distance more than time, so you have a long time to relax and chat. You become good friends, and that's great (and necessary).

The difference now is if you don't start fighting to gain advantages on one another you fall back into the habit of running as slow as the slowest person wants to go. That's helping no one, not even the slowest runner. Growing hurts, because you are stretching yourselves in ways you otherwise wouldn't. That's both mentally and physically, by the way.

This is not a switch you can flip on and off that easily. Weeks out from your peak race you have to get progressively more into your race frame of mind, your aggressive spirit, and you become very, very adversarial.

So here we are... clumps of runners in the same time range, all beginning to eye one another. Okay, I said it! You are all beginning to figure out how you're going to beat one another. Great! That is exactly what you should be doing. You will also more and more find me pointing out weaknesses of your teammates as they exhibit them, giving you something to think about and target as you try to unlock the puzzle and come out on top.

I don't play favorites... I will freely share this information with all of you. I want you to attack your teammates' weaknesses. If you are successful, then we can learn from that. You will have learned a valuable tool to use against outside competition, and your teammate will pinpoint something to work on and remedy.

With my training partners, let's say I'm in the middle of a hard workout that has a competitive element - say a cycling time trial. From the time we start, my mind goes from managing my workload, monitoring my "pressure", and simultaneously looking for openings against them. Any sign of weakness is quickly detected and used. If I pass, I do so decisively and keep moving on - remember, always project strength. Until the very end it's a fight.

The second the exercise is over, we relax and start discussing what just happened. All of us share what we were thinking, what we saw, and what we tried to do. If I beat someone, I will share with them what I saw and when and why I did what I did. I do this to help them - after all, if I wanted to maintain that edge I wouldn't want them to know how I did it. No, as much as I want to beat them, I also want to help them get better. Better training partners push me, making me a better racer. See?

As weird as it sounds, though you are friends, you have to attack one another. You have to make life hard for each other as you work out. You all have to prove you can take it longer than the other girls. And when it is over, you have to congratulate each other, win or lose, and mean it. You don't have to like losing to others, in fact I hope you don't. I hope it does bother you, because competitors always hate to lose. Take that negative and turn it into a positive by learning from it. Figure out what went wrong and why, then do whatever it takes to fix it. 

Computer Crash!

Ladies,

Sorry for the delay - computer crash. I'm afraid the old lady is gone. She's at least 7 years old, and in the world of computers, that's a long time. I might be able to fix it, but there is a rule about old computers... if you are going to put the equivalent of 40% the cost of a new computer to get it going again, save the money and buy new. I think that's what I will wind up doing. It's simply not worth the cost to fix.

The bad part is the data I might lose. I'm trying to recover what I can, but that's going to take some time. Rest assured, I can gather this year's data easily enough; the past two years could be harder. In the end it will all work out.

As for now, let's resume the regular programming...

Today was another great workout. It's tough to go back-to-back like you did, and on top of that the wind was something else this afternoon. It's tough to hold a steady pace in blustery conditions, but you guys did fine. I'll break it down by girl...

Carrie - 6:46, 6:53, 13:45 total, 21:23 5k pace. You are headed for a season's best race, if not PR. You have the green light to race as you see fit this weekend. Just bear in mind the first half of the first mile makes or breaks you. After that, just keep running harder.

Joslyn - 6:59, 7:01, 14:02, 21:48, 5k pace. You also are headed for a season's best. You also appear to be over whatever had you at the end of last week, so you are free to race as you see fit this weekend. You know what to do.

Katlyn - 6:59, 7:03, 14:06, 21:52 projected 5k. No matter what, you are going to PR this weekend. If you can gut it out, you will also be in a completely new league of running, and cold sweat will be running down the Salem coach's face. You are going to need to focus on mile 2. Make that one your best. If you look at the splits tonight, you held pretty even numbers (like Joslyn). You are there! You have arrived, this is the Katlyn weve been waiting for. Don't be afraid. Let her come out to play. ;)

Zoe - 6:59, 7:04, 14:08, 21:55 projected 5k. Everything I said about Katlyn, ditto. The one thing I would add is you have to take the moment as soon as it happens. Tonight you let small gaps open that didn't have to happen, and if you do that eventually one of them sticks. If I'm in front of you and feel you coming unstuck every time I bump it up a bit, eventually I'll put in a hard lick and drop you. Make up your mind it won't happen and hang in there! You are tough, you can do it.

Madison - 7:18, 7:23, 14:46, 22:54 projected 5k. This is not where you would be if you hadn't gotten hurt, but it's the best you've run this year. Just know you are getting better, you are making progress, and pretty soon we're going to have an awfully tight pack up there in the front. With you healthy, this team could go to State!

Chelsey - 7:53, 7:53, 15:46, 24:27 projected 5k. This would be a huge drop! And did you notice... dead even splits? All you would need to do is hang on one more mile. You can, and you know it. PR, baby!

Cynthany - 8:06, 8:11, 16:22, 25:24 projected 5k. Huge drop? You bet! I think you can run 8-flat pace on fresh legs... all you need is the courage to try it.

Sara - 8:06, 8:14, 16:28, 25:32 projected 5k. YES! Two hard miles! You are getting better every day. I know it still hurts, but you are able to get a little farther every day at speed. We'll keep pushing, and you will be surprised what you can do.

Kate - 8:06, 8:23, 16:46, 26:01 projected 5k. This is a fine workout, but I think you can hold the same numbers as Cynthany and Sara. Focus is the issue. You have to live in the moment, the right, now. Maybe you do, but if so let's try it in a POSITIVE way. Sure, it hurts, everyone does. You are tough, you are fast, and if you can figure out how to relax at speed, you certainly have the tools.

Tomorrow won't be a hard workout, but I was thinking... BMS and Shawswick run a meet at Shawswick. Let's try to get this one done quickly so those who want to go watch our girls run have a chance. I'm thinking maybe 7 miles easy. If you guys get to the field quickly and get started we should crack that out in around an hour. Plenty of time to make a 5 o'clock meet.

What do you say?

Nice!

Ladies!

BAM!

Runner	1	2	3	4	5	Total
Carrie	3:09:00	3:07:00	3:03:00	2:54:00		12:13:00
Zoe	3:23:00	3:20:00	3:18:00	3:08:00	3:04:00	16:13:00
Joslyn	3:23:00	3:20:00	3:18:00	3:08:00	3:04:00	16:13:00
Katlyn	3:24:00	3:24:00	3:18:00	3:14:00	3:05:00	16:25:00
Chelsey	3:41:00	3:43:00	3:51:00	3:41:00		14:56:00
Diana	3:41:00	3:39:00	3:37:00	3:35:00	3:33:00	18:05:00
Sara	4:04:00	4:05:00	4:05:00			12:14:00
Cynthany	4:04:00	4:05:00	4:05:00	3:59:00	3:50:00	20:03:00
Kate	4:01:00	3:58:00	3:37:00	3:24:00	3:30:00	18:30:00
Coach	3:16:00	3:15:00	3:15:00	2:55:00	3:21:00	16:02:00

buh-BAM!

Runner	Pace	MPM	5k
Carrie	3:03:15	6:06:30	18:56:09
Zoe	3:14:36	6:29:12	20:06:31
Joslyn	3:14:36	6:29:12	20:06:31
Katlyn	3:17:00	6:34:00	20:21:24
Chelsey	3:44:00	7:28:00	23:08:48
Diana	3:37:00	7:14:00	22:25:24
Sara	4:04:40	8:09:20	25:16:56
Cynthany	4:00:36	8:01:12	24:51:43
Kate	3:42:00	7:24:00	22:56:24
Coach	3:12:24	6:24:48	19:52:53

Okay, let me play some crazy games here. Bear with me...

The track is flat and we had a good night. But IF we were to get to a flat course (Brown County) and IF we had good conditions (outstanding race weather predicted for Saturday) then we should be ready to see some significant time drops this weekend. How much? Well, let's be realistic a bit... I don't think anyone is about to run sub-19 just yet, but if I very conservatively added 2 minutes to each time (and that is VERY conservative), I think you could be right on it. 

Sound crazy? Ask Coach. tonight her time extrapolates out to a 19:52. She ran 20:53 just this past weekend, only a minute slower than the time predicted today. So... realistically - VERY realistically - add between 1-2 minutes to the projection for your current time.

Gulp. 

For my part, this does not surprise me at all. Carrie is running like the Carrie of days gone by. Zoe and Katlyn have been growing by leaps and bounds, blossoming off the quality work. Joslyn is recovering a bit slower, but in spite of everything is improving every meet. Chelsey and Diana amaze me workout after workout. Sara is getting healthier, as is Madison and Kate. Finally, Cynthany is beginning to get stronger from the miles. 

I may be getting out there ahead of myself, but do you girls realize by Sectional time you ALL could be in the All-Time Top-25 for BNL? I will go ahead and lean out there and say the majority of you WILL be. I don't know about you, but that fires me up!

There is no knocking the work any of you did today - every single one of you met or exceeded the workout goals. To. A. Girl. The only downside is Madison couldn't do it, but if she had, there would have been 5 girls in the mid to low 6's, and runners #5 and #6 in the mid-7's. If you told me I could have those times as they were today in State series, well, sign me up!

Of course this workout is only half the story. There is still a lot to learn about pacing and trying to land in the right place on a given course. There is also the mental toughness side, but that part is really easy, at least to understand. Anytime you feel yourself getting mentally weak, confront yourself. I LOVED it when so many girls went for the dollar challenge, and even more, the way you did it. Some of you knew you could easily do it; others didn't know, but made a quick mental adjustment, got your head around it, and fought. Girls, that's racing right there. Sometimes the situations on the course change in a heartbeat. You have to be ready to alter your plan and adapt. I didn't have to beg you guys, you just accepted. BRAVO!

If you didn't do it, don't feel badly. I really didn't want everyone to go for it, especially if you are nursing injuries. That's why I didn't start with very many to begin with. Remember, we are going to run a tempo tomorrow, so we have to be careful with this. We certainly don't need anyone hurt. 

Did I actually plan to add that last one from the beginning? Well, not exactly. I kept the option open depending on how well you ladies did the first few. As you were practically all accelerating from beginning to end, it seemed to be something worth trying. For most of you, the last one turned out to be the fastest one!

The good news about tomorrow: the pace will be slower. The bad news about tomorrow: you won't get a break for 2 miles. Think of it this way... in 13-16 minutes you will be done. If you can get your head around that one, I think it will go fine. 

I'll be watching the weather all day. Let's hope for a window of clear weather!

Cooler Weather!

Ladies,

Finally! It didn't seem as if the weather would ever break, but it has. This whole week looks to be fantastic, and we will make the most of it. We kicked it off today with a good run, and I think everyone made some good distance. A few of you had your longest runs yet!

Tomorrow things get a bit more serious. We'll be doing 800's, four of them to be exact. That's shorter than we normally do, and there's a reason. The next day we'll do a tempo. That will give us back-to-back quality days, which can be done. We just have to be careful how we do it.

In the first workout we'll be looking at goal times for the next meet (Saturday). These I will base off your last (or fastest) race. What we are looking for is improvement, so expect me to bump your race average pace up a bit.

Why do it on the track? Control. I love the Milwaukee surface, but there is no good way to manage the splits for all you girls. I can get accurate distances. I can't be at all places at all times. I need those splits at this point so I can begin to pinpoint what is what.

Breaking this down, it will likely go something like this:

Carrie - last race pace was 21:44, but last year on this course you ran 20:50. That's 6:36 pace, so I would want to see if you could hold 6:30 pace for 4 x 800. That would be 3:18 total per 800. Before you balk, remember that you have routinely held sub-3:00 800's for the last two years. I'm sure you can easily do 3:18.

Joslyn - I don't have a lot to go on other than your race pace. Given how rough it's been on you the last few days, I don't want anything faster than 3:30 to start (7-minute pace). If the first couple go okay, then we'll go harder. You'd better hydrate tonight, girlfriend! FWIW, that pace would give you 21:42, a good drop from last race.

Zoe - this is going to sound crazy, but I want you to try 3:30. I have a lot of reasons to believe you can do it, starting with you are daily in the top 3 of runners. Sure, your race pace was 7:40, but I think it's a confidence thing with you. If I can prove to you it's possible, you will do it.

Katlyn - remember that gap thing we talked about today? They were 2:19, 1:53. The trend is definitely up, and you are about to break big. I'll back you down to a 3:35, or 7:10 pace, though my gut says that's not necessary. I think you could hold the 7.

Diana - you can race at 7:50 pace, and tomorrow we prove it. You will hold 3:50 (or under) for all four. Yes, you will!

Chelsey - I can't see any reason you can't hold 3:50 (7:40 pace). You should be able to handle that pace easily enough.

Kate - really tough to gauge this one. We'll go with 4:10 (8:20 pace). That seems like an appropriate jump, if you're healthy. And you sound like you are!

Sara - same as Kate. For you it isn't about how fast you can run, it's how long you can take it. We have to find the pace that you can handle without triggering an episode.

Cynthany - same as Sara. You are fast, a great sprinter; let's see how long you can hang onto that speed.

Look, in the old days we did 8 x 800. I'm cutting this back, at least for this week, so wrap your heads around doing four. Don't be frightened - be like Diana. Tonight, when I went down to the track to catch the end of the workout, Coach Vance asked a couple girls to run hard the last quarter. Kate passed the invite onto Diana. I loved Diana's response:

"Bring it."

That's right, baby. And you know something else? Diana outran Kate. Diana, who is not a sprinter, outran Kate, whom I believe to be a natural-born 800 runner. Diana refused to lose, simple as that. Learn from that, ladies... don't be afraid to try, embrace competition, never back down...

Oh, I promised to show you the run data I collected tonight...

Watch how the pace and heart rate were connected, as well as hills and heart rate.

Everyone Breaks Down, Eventually

Ladies,

It's been a game-changing week for this team. Monday started an abrupt paradigm shift that saw practices switch from controlled, paced runs into competitive "watch for the next move" type events. It's going to pay off huge, indeed it did even last night. Racing season is a completely different mindset every day, every practice.

Still, the body does have limits, and today we hit them. Nearly everyone is beaten down after this long week, and the heat index was far higher than I expected. Put that together and you have some runs that had to be curtailed. Man, I wish we'd have stayed at Milwaukee!

I want to talk about knowing when it's time to call it a day... the surest sign your body is finished is heart rate. Theoretically, your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. We worked this out with Joslyn after I chopped her day, so let's use her as an example. Her pulse was at 190-195 when I stopped her. Let's run the numbers:

220 - 14 = 206
190 / 206 = 92%

A rest day probably shouldn't go above 75%, or 155 bpm for Joslyn. Her pulse was racing at almost 11-minute pace running. There is nothing, NOTHING constructive about breaking an athlete down beyond that. You are practicing bad form, destroying confidence, and slowing the recovery process. That's my job - to look at you and see when the day is over.

I wish I could dig up an old book (long out of print) by a German physiologist by the name of Junge (which is German for "Youth", ironically enough). He laid out the foundation of principles upon which I based much of my early training and racing career. It was great stuff. If I ever get my hands on a copy I'll be a better coach for it.

The gist of it is this... instead of using a watch, it's entirely possible to train by heart rate alone. In truth, it gives a far more accurate picture of any given moment than time. There are so many variables that go into making a course or conditions that time alone falls miserably short of telling the story. Heart rate never lies. If you hold a zone of heart rate, that's how hard you worked, period.

Back to Joslyn's example... she might have led workouts all week, but today might have been the hardest she's worked yet. That zone is in the place reserved for intervals and racing. It didn't matter how slow she was going - the stress was the same as if she were racing. That's why she felt so awful. I suspect Diana was there by the end of her run, too.

Two girls that really made out okay were Carrie and Zoe. I checked them, Carrie clocking in at 150, Zoe at 160. Zoe's was slightly elevated, but not in any danger. Carrie was coasting. Katlyn finished right after them with a 170, clearly working very hard. So, though Carrie and Zoe were faster, Katlyn worked harder. See how it works?

Here is a great page with useful information.

Just remember this... it all comes down to place in a race. Whatever methodology gets you to the line before as many runners as possible is viable. We like to think of time because it is comfortable. Sometimes we have to think outside the box to get the full story, and to get the most out of ourselves.

Tomorrow I have planned a long run, but I am very prepared to cut it back if things get too hard. We cannot hurt people at this point unnecessarily, and if I have to choose between speed and distance, I choose speed.